A. P. English Language & Composition Name ______

A. P. English Language & Composition Name ______

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s

The Scarlet Letter

Chapter One, “The Prison Door”

GROUP 1: Hawthorne carefully controls his description of setting in order to convey the “atmosphere” of Puritan Boston in 1642. Examine Hawthorne’s word choices in Chapter One. What are your initial impressions of this Puritan settlement? MAKE SPECIFIC REFERENCES TO THE TEXT.

GROUP 2: Examine Hawthorne’s description of the prison. What metaphor does he use to convey the essence of the prison? (46)

GROUP 3: Examine the wild rosebush which grows outside the prison door. How does this rosebush function symbolically within the shadow of the prison? (Hawthorne has established a symbolic “antithesis.” Can you explain it?) (46)

GROUP 4One theory accounting for the presence of the rosebush is that it has “sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Anne Hutchinson, as she entered the prison door.” Identify the significance of this real historical figure. (46)

Chapter Two, “The Market Place” CHOOSE 3

1. With Chapter Two, Hawthorne shifts his focus from a description of the Puritan graveyard and prison to a description of the Puritans themselves. Examine Hawthorne’s word choices in Chapter Two. What are your initial impressions of the Puritan people?

2. Hawthorne’s narrator provides us with a list of reasons these people might have gathered outside the prison door. First itemize these reasons. Second, what can we conclude about the Puritans on the basis of your list? (47)

3. Inference: Explain why the women “take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction might be expected to ensue.”

4. Examine the women’s commentary regarding Hester and which punishment would best suit her. What can we infer about these women, and about Puritan society in general/ (Note also the “young wife” who disagrees with the more severe judges among them. Why would Hawthorne include her character?) (49)

5. Note Hawthorne’s evocative description of the town beadle as he emerges from the prison. What significance can you ascribe to this description? (50)

6. Hester Prynne’s first appearance in the novel in highly dramatic; it speaks volumes of her character and how Hawthorne wishes us to perceive her. Please examine the details of her initial appearance. What first impressions do we gain of the principal character of the novel? (50-51)

7. Examine carefully the passage in which Hester clasps her baby girl, Pearl, tight to her bosom? Why does she do so? Why does she subsequently relax her hold on the girl? What is the symbolic significance of this brief scene? (50, bottom)

8. Some of the townspeople are stunned by Hester’s appearance, noting how “here beauty shone out and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped.” What do we learn of Hester in this remarkably meaningful line? Speculate as to the significance of Hawthorne’s precise wording. (51)

9. Describe the scarlet letter embroidered upon Hester’s bosom. Discuss the significance of its appearance. (52)

10. The scaffold is a remarkably evocative setting, central to the progress of the novel and its characters. Describe the scaffold fully and comment regarding its appearance and functions. (53-54)

11. Do you believe (personally) that a scaffold would be an effective punishment in our own society? How would such punishment work, or fail to work? Explain your response.

12. As Hester endures the scaffold her mind begins to wander, “bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town on the edge of the Western wilderness.” (55) (Essentially, her life flashes before her eyes. . . . This experience is virtually a “death” for Hester.) Describe these scenes that pass before her “mind’s eye.” Note in particular the “misshapen scholar” who is a part of Hester’s musings. This scholar is her husband, whom most of the town presumes to be drowned. What impressions do we gain of this man, whose left shoulder is a “trifle” higher than his right? (56-57)

Chapter Three, “The Recognition”

GROUP 1. In the beginning of Chapter Three, Hester recognizes the misshapen scholar on the edge of the crowd. (It is none other that her husband, Master Prynne, who will henceforth adopt the name Roger Chillingworth in order to conceal his identity from the Puritan community.) Describe Hester’s response as she initially recognizes him. Make an inference regarding why she responds this way. (58)

GROUP 2. At about the same time Hester sees Roger Chillingworth on the edge of the crown, he sees and recognizes her. Describe his response. Based upon Hawthorne’s exact wording, what can we infer about Chillingworth’s character? (58)

GROUP 3. Describe how Chillingworth subtly communicates with Hester via a hand gesture. Why does he do so? What is the significance of this silent communication between the husband and wife? (top 59)

GROUP 3. Examine Chillingworth’s conversation with the townsman. What do we learn about Chillingworth during the course of this conversation? (some factual information, and some inferences regarding his character) (59-60)

GROUP 4. Why have the magistrates decided to spare Hester the death penalty for her crime? Do you believe the punishment they have settled upon is appropriate considering the nature of her offense?

GROUP 4. Why does Hester dread being out of the public eye? (middle 61) How has the crowd ironically become a “shield” for her?

8. Examine Hawthorne’s carefully worded description of the Puritan dignitaries present at the scaffold scene. What are your impressions of these spiritual and political leaders of the Puritan community? (Notice the echoes of common medieval and renaissance beliefs, such as the Divine Right of Kings and the Great Chain of Being. Be sure to remember that this Puritan community is a “theocracy.”)

9. One of the Puritan dignitaries, John Wilson, encourages Arthur Dimmesdale – as Hester’s minister – to convince Hester to divulge the identity of Pearl’s father. How does Dimmesdale respond? (64) Examine Dimmesdale’s plea that Hester identify the father’s name, and draw inferences regarding Dimmesdale’s character. (65) Do you detect any verbal irony in his plea?

10. In his plea, Dimmesdale compares Hester’s public penance to a cup from which she must drink. How is the “cup presented to [Hester’s] lips” both “bitter and sweet”? Explain how public penance can be wholesome if painful. (65)

11. Make an inference: Why does Hester decide to conceal the identity of her baby’s father, even though Wilson has offered the prospect of removing the “A” from her bosom if she will speak?

Chapter Four, “The Interview”

GROUP 4. Back in the prison, Hester is closely monitored by the Puritan guard. Why do the Puritans feel she demands a state of “constant watchfulness?” (67)

GROUP 4. Why is Roger Chillingworth longed for in the prison? Why does Master Brackett (the guard) bring Chillingworth to attend Hester? What are his qualifications? (68)

3. Explain the symbolism associated with little Pearl in the following image: “It now writhed in convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the moral agony which Hester Prynne had borne throughout the day.” (68)

GROUP 3. What is Chillingworth’s motivation in giving medicine to Pearl and Hester? (69) Explain how his administration of the draught of medicine “for the relief of physical suffering” could be seen as “a refined cruelty.” (71)

GROUP 3. What or whom does Chillingworth blame for Hester’s “[fall] into the pit”? (71)

GROUP 2. What does Chillingworth mean when he says to Hester, “Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced.” (72)

GROUP 2. After reading Chillingworth’s admission of his own “folly,” do you feel more sympathy for his position or for Hester’s? Explain.

GROUP 1. Chillingworth describes his plan for action thus: “I shall seek this man [the father of Pearl] as I have sought truth in books, as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine! . . . He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou [Hester] dost; but I shall read it on his heart. Yet fear not for him? Think not that I shall interfere with Heaven’s own method of retribution, or, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of human law. Neither do thou imagine that I shall contrive aught against his life; no, nor against his fame, if, as I judge, he be a man of fair repute. Let him live! Let him hide himself in outward honor, if he may! Not the less he shall be mine!” (73) On the basis of this quotation, what do we learn of Chillingworth’s character? His plan? In your opinion, is his “quest” honorable or dishonorable? Reasonable or unreasonable? Leading to good or to ill? Constructive or destructive?

10. Describe Hester’s response to Chillingworth’s special request. Inference: Why does she respond this way? Prediction: What will be the outcome? (See the exact wording at the conclusion of Chapter Four for “hints.”) Would you have the done the same as Hester? Explain. (74)

Chapter Five, “Hester at Her Needle”

CHOOSE 3

1. Explain why there is “more real torture” as Hester leaves the prison than she experienced even on the day she was required to stand on the scaffold. (75)

2. The narrator offers two reasons (theory A and theory B) why Hester doesn’t simply pack up and leave the Puritan community behind her. What are those reasons? (76-77)

3. Hester herself offers a reason (theory C) why she does not leave Boston. Please explain this reason. (77)

4. What is the “idea” (courtesy of the “tempter of souls”) which Hester seizes upon “with passionate and desperate joy”? (As a follow-up question, how does Hester conceiver her own afterlife?)

5. Describe Hester’s new home (top 78). Can you find symbolic significance in Hawthorne’s descriptive details?

6. How does Hester manage to feed herself and her daughter, Pearl? (78) (Follow-up question: What do the “jobs” Hester is hired to perform reveal about her Puritan customers?)

7. Examine how Hester clothes herself and (contrastingly) how she clothes Pearl. What is the significance of this contrast?

8. Explain how Hester “bestow[s] all her superfluous means.” (80) What can we infer about her character and her motives?

9. Find the powerful simile that Hawthorne crafts in order to convey the experience of alienation or “banishment” which Hester feels. (81)

10. How does Hester respond to the slights and insults she receives from rich and poor alike? Infer her motives and character on the basis of her response to these “attacks.” (82)

11. Hester’s solitude has produced a remarkable “fancy” – “that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hears. . . .” Explain his “fancy” in your own words and explore its significance to the novel. (83-84)

Chapter Six, “Pearl”

GROUP 2: Please examine the opening sentence of Chapter Six: “We have as yet hardly spoken of the infant; that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion.” On the basis of the details of this sentence, how does Hawthorne view Pearl? (85)

GROUP 3: Explain the significance of Pearl’s name. (85)

GROUP 3: How does Hester view her own child? (86)

1.  Examine and explain the significance of the following quotations regarding Pearl: “the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden. . . . the child had a native grace. . . . there was an absolute circle of radiance around her on the darksome cottage floor.” (86)

GROUP 1: Assess the significance of the following passage. (It functions on two levels of meaning, literal and symbolic.) “Pearl’s aspect was imbued with a spell of infinite variety; in this one child there were many children, comprehending the full scope between the wild-flower prettiness of a peasant baby, and the pomp, in little, of an infant princess.” (87)

GROUP 4: Examine Hester’s attempts to “discipline” Pearl. Ho do her disciplinary methods compare with those of the typical Puritan family? (88)

GROUP 4: How do Puritan children “disport themselves” – that is, how do they play? (90)

GROUP 4: Describe Pearls relationship with other children in the community? (90-91)

GROUP 1: How does Pearl “disport herself” – how does she play? (92)

2.  According to Hester’s (somewhat hesitant) response to her daughter’s question, who has “sent [Pearl] hither”? According to the talk of the neighboring townspeople, who has “sent” Pearl?” (95) Which view would Hawthorne agree with?

Chapter Seven, “The Governor’s Hall”

CHOOSE 3

1. Explain Hester’s two purposes in visiting Governor Bellingham at his estate. (96)

2. What do “some of the leading inhabitants” of the colony intend for Pearl? Explain their rational. (96-97)

3. Examine Hawthorne’s description of the three-year-old Pearl. In particular, note the extravagant clothing her mother has created for her. Why has Hester chosen to attire Pearl thus? Can you find symbolic significance in this clothing? (98)